Chelsea's kitchen incubator finds new space

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 | Source: Concentrate

The Chelsea kitchen incubator will march on, even if it's to another kitchen, or two.

The culinary incubator originally proposed for the Washington Street Center, the old Chelsea High School, now has a new home at the kitchen in the First United Methodist Church. Organizers plan to start offering cooking and kitchen safety classes there by the end of the month once they have zoning approval.

"It's likely we'll have multiple facilities," says Victoria Bennett, one of the lead organizers behind the Chelsea kitchen incubator. "It allows us to serve more people in the same amount of time."

Bennett is an academic associate at Washtenaw Community College. She has worked extensively with entrepreneurs at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. The Chelsea resident noticed that most of the small business incubation facilities were on the eastern end of Washtenaw County and saw a largely unused Washington Street Center kitchen as a way to open a new kind of business incubator on the west side.

That space didn't work out but the idea stuck. Bennett and other organizers are identifying other industrial-sized kitchens in the area that can be used so more chefs can cook during peak hours.

The Chelsea kitchen incubator will be holding a fundraiser on Aug. 30. For information on the fledgling kitchen incubator, click here or send an email to Bennett at vbennett@wccnet.edu.

Source: Victoria Bennett, academic associate with Washtenaw Community College
Writer: Jon Zemke